We recently went into detail in an interview with Striker VR, a company working on a powerful gun recoil technology for virtual reality. Not shown in that interview was the company’s pistol prototype which felt to have even more satisfying recoil by my testing than their rifle (which was already impressive). Rather than design a weapon from scratch, Striker VR grabbed a freely available digital model of Halo’s famous M6 Magnum to build out the prototype.
To showcase their virtual reality weapon recoil system, Striker VR created both rifle and pistol prototypes. The pistol prototype, which I had the chance to try at Oculus Connect, actually borrows its design from the infamous M6 Magnum first introduced in Halo: Combat Evolved (2001).
While I lauded the quality of feedback from the rifle prototype, I think the pistol prototype—seen here with a rough integration of Trinity VR’s tracking tech—was even more satisfying (probably thanks to increased torque due to its smaller size). They even built in some rudimentary reload functionality where you have to give the gun a good smack on the bottom of the clip after 15 shots.
As a long time Halo player, I recognized the design instantly. The model used for their prototype appears to most closely resemble the M6C version of the Magnum as present in Halo 2 (2004). There’s 12 variants of the M6 Magnum used throughout the Halo games, for those keeping count. Hilariously, the enlarged trigger guard that’s a staple of the weapon’s design actually makes it awful for handling with two hands, leaving no room for proper stabilization from the off hand. The most comfortable place for your off hand ends up being on the bottom of the clip which does little to stabilize recoil, but then again, the weapon was designed to be wielded, in one hand if need be, by the Spartan super-soldiers of Halo lore.
As a testament to developer Bungie’s attention to detail, character models in their game actually wield the weapon just as I ended up doing with the real model.